Saturday, July 29, 2017

North Korea Missile Test Could Put Denver in Range

SEOUL—North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile Friday that experts said put the continental U.S. firmly in range of a strike, underscoring Pyongyang’s rapid advance in technology and intensifying a standoff with Washington.
The launch emanated from North Korea’s mountainous interior, flying for more than 45 minutes before landing in the waters between Japan and the Korean Peninsula, U.S., South Korean and Japanese officials said.
Hours after the North Korea missile launch, the U.S. and South Korea carried out a live fire exercise by launching missiles into the territorial waters off South Korea’s East Coast, according to the U.S. military.
Lt. Gen. Thomas Vandal, commander of the U.S. Eighth Army in South Korea, said that the U.S. military is “ready to fight tonight, will deter North Korean provocation and if necessary defend the Republic of Korea,” using the formal name for South Korea.
North Korea’s action comes just three weeks after it surprised the world with its first ever intercontinental ballistic missile test.
But Friday’s missile was a more advanced ICBM than the one fired earlier this month, flying 620 miles and reaching a maximum altitude of 2,300 miles—far more than the July 4 missile’s 1,740 miles, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. North Korea, in a separate media report hours later, released numbers in line with those estimates.
The significantly higher altitude of Friday’s missile suggests that it could have flown much farther than the last one. READ MORE